


No One Mourns The Wicked

by Sciencelings



Series: Irondad Bingo Entries [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Irondad Bingo 2019, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, au where tony has some self control, lowkey me projecting, mays abusive boyfriend trope, mentions of abuse, omc is the abusive boyfriend, rated teen because i swear and this deals with abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-14 22:04:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18485293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sciencelings/pseuds/Sciencelings
Summary: My irondad bingo entry for the prompt: May's Abusive Boyfriend.





	No One Mourns The Wicked

Peter didn’t think that May’s new boyfriend was bad. At least at first. He was glad that May had places to go besides work and that when she talked about the guy she was dating, she’d have that dreamy look in her eye. She was happier after her dates and told Peter constantly about him while he talked about hanging out with Mr. Stark. They were happy with not being as alone, expanding their interests, not relying on only each other. 

 

But the optimism didn’t last forever. Eventually, Peter had to meet the guy. Gabe was not the best looking dude but May wasn’t known for great taste and for judging people from the inside or whatever. Peter personally thought that May should aim higher than a balding guy with a beer belly but he didn’t say anything. May seemed to like him and he wasn’t too annoying to be around. He was kind of weird when he talked to Peter but so far he wasn’t that bad. 

 

Well, he wasn’t that bad until he got evicted from his shitty apartment and May, being the nice person that she was, let him stay with them. With her being a nurse, she wasn’t there all the time and Peter was left alone with Gabe who swore he had a job even though he rarely left the apartment. 

 

When May was away, Gabe was completely different. He looked at Peter with such a sour expression that he swore that the guy had injected himself with warheads and lemon juice. He had a very condescending tone whenever he needed something and due to Peters general ability to not say no to people due to being too nice, he tended to just do whatever Gabe wanted just to keep conflict from breaking out. Which meant he would fetch any trash he filled their fridge with and picked up after him whenever he was too lazy to do anything himself which was always. 

 

Then every time May would come home, it was like a flick of the switch. Peter knew that May would believe him if he told her that he didn’t like Gabe but it wasn’t too bad yet and May seemed so happy. He could endure for her. But of course, Gabe figured out that Peter was a pushover and would do anything to keep his aunt happy so things got a lot worse. Gabe acted like Peter was practically a punching bag. Not that he would constantly beat him up but that he would shove him roughly as if he couldn’t feel any pain and Peter just tried to ignore it. Peter was spider-man so this was fine. He could be shoved by a six-foot man into the edge of the counter and the bruise wouldn’t even be that bad. 

 

Pretty soon, May’s apartment didn’t feel as much like home. He would hang out at the tower whenever May had afternoon shifts when she had to leave Peter alone with Gabe. It got worse when Gabe insisted he give Peter a ride to school instead of taking the subway. They tried to have a normal conversation but it was weird and Peter wanted to run the whole time. Then Gabe got mad over nothing and yelled at him as they sat parked in front of the school. Peter had to quite literally fight him off to get out of the car. If there were fewer people there present, Peter was sure that Gabe would come out and fight him in the open. Thankfully, there would be too many witnesses if he did. 

 

Peter avoided Gabe as much as he could and consequentially ended up avoiding May. He hung out with Tony and Ned more, doing homework with his friend and spending more time as Spider-Man just to be away from May’s boyfriend. Unsurprisingly, people started to notice. 

 

Tony and Ned both knew that May had a boyfriend but that was practically it. Peter blamed his not wanting to be home on him not wanting to see May get all romantic with a dude even though it was much worse. May noticed when he was gone and forced him to stay home until she was off of work and Peter often left the apartment with bruises and cuts from broken bottles. Ned assumed that it was from spider-man-ing and Peter didn’t want to correct him. 

 

Peter still managed to avoid Gabe when he went to hang out with Mr. Stark. At least when he was working with Tony, he wasn’t on the streets bringing up bad guys, making May worry. She enjoyed listening to Peter ramble about what he was working on, carefully avoiding information that would out him in front of Gabe. The conversation became shorter and shorter as Gabe looked angrier and angrier and May didn’t seem to notice how her boyfriend affected him. 

 

Gabe only wanted to talk about himself. He seemed bored and impatient when anyone else talked about something that wasn’t him. May usually obliged and asked him questions which made him go off on a rant or a story making Peter wish that he was deaf. 

 

Tony seemed to avoid snooping until there was evidence of May’s boyfriend being actually bad for Peter. Tony knew when Peter went on patrol and what injury he got when he was on patrol. It was routine for him to see everything that had happened and help him when something went wrong. 

 

So, Tony knew when Peter got hurt. He also knew when Peter was trying to cover up an injury. He just didn’t expect to get so hurt when he wasn’t playing vigilante. Maybe like a burn from trying to make pasta but not a bruise shaped like a hand on his arm that was not recorded as happening on patrol. Peter had tried to cover it up with some of May’s concealer but the shade was too light and stood out like a sore thumb. It would’ve healed pretty quick which meant that the injury must have happened immediately before Peter had arrived at the tower and he must’ve panicked to hide it.

 

Tony, someone who was intimately aware of the effects of several forms of child abuse, may have internally freaked out when he made Peter wash off the makeup and show him the injury. Sure, bruises weren’t severe and no normal person could actually hurt the enhanced kid with their bare hands, but Tony turned out to be a chronic worrier and he hated it when Peter pretended that pain wasn’t a thing. Also, there was the whole thing of ‘someone hurt my kid’ that always tended to enrage him. He managed to shove the anger aside to carefully talk to the kid. 

 

Peter, for the first time since they had met, was at a loss for words. Eventually through soft questioning, Tony was able to piece everything together. Peter hanging out at the tower more often became a obvious red flag that he had been blind to seeing. He had been so excited to hang out with the kid that he never thought about why he was so eager to not be at home. 

 

His little different mannerisms started to make sense too. The kid had started to stutter more and when he did, he would just stop speaking until Tony told him to continue. Now he recognized that it was because he had been scrutinized for it and he was subconsciously trying to avoid any punishment by not talking. Peter was a little more shut down than he was before but thankfully, May’s boyfriend had not been fucking the kid up for very long. 

 

Tony wanted to barge into May’s apartment and beat some sense into the guy but he knew that there was a much better way. A way that was true justice and not just him Captain America-ing it and beating the problem away with his fists. 

 

Tony took a lot of pleasure when he planned it out. First, of course, he sent Peter to do homework and order food then let him spend the night at the tower while he planned out the quiet justice that would ruin this assholes life. Completely legally of course… After staying up all night, he had successfully turned his rage into a motivational fuel for an act of revenge that he couldn't wait to witness. 

 

Peter knew that something was up. He was anything but an idiot. He knew that Mr. Stark was up to something. His mentor obviously hadn’t slept and had a manic smile on his face the next morning while he gave Peter a fifty to get himself breakfast and told him if he didn’t eat, Tony would visit him at school and scold him in front of everyone. Peter didn’t think that was so bad. 

 

Peter continued to try and balance trying not to be around Gabe but to hang out with May as much as he could, which was kind of impossible as Gabe tried to be around Peter’s aunt as much as physically possible. The moments that he had to be with Gabe alone were compacted with insults towards him and a sprinkling of physical abuse that made Tony’s blood boil through the camera bot he had planted on Peter before he left. 

 

Tony collected evidence all week. He found as much dirt on this Gabe Ugliano. It turns out that the guy had a history of shit like this. He lured poor women in with money that he scammed out of people and he was like if Howard Stark was part blobfish and had a less expensive taste in alcohol. Needless to say, Tony had made the decision to not be completely anonymous in this revenge. He wanted to see the look in the man's ugly eyes as everything crumbled around him. 

 

Tony started out small. Encrypted blackmail. He wanted to freak the guy out before he tore everything down. He wanted Gabe to feel the constant paranoia that the man had inflicted upon Peter when he was too afraid to be in his own home. The emails would disappear before Gabe could report it and he was too stupid to screenshot them. He also didn’t seem too keen to involve the police anyway as he did have a record. 

 

Tony did it for him. Plenty of footage and proof was sent to the NYPD and Tony just happened to be in the area when shit went down. He had arranged for Pepper to take May out for a girls night and according to Karen, Peter was spider-man-ing closer to Brooklyn. Neither of them would be in danger just in case Gabe turned out to be crazier than Tony had expected. 

 

Gabe was pretty hammered at the time so Tony was glad that Peter was out of the way. Gabe tried to throw a glass at the policemen and was promptly subdued and handcuffed. It was simple. But Tony wasn’t done. He had sent evidence of all of Gabe's shit. If the man was lucky, he’d only be in prison for… thirty years? Thirty-five? There were definitely enough potential charges to build up to a substantial punishment. Of course, after that, his life would still be ruined and he would likely die poor and alone. 

 

This was Tony being nice and borderline legal. This was Tony holding back. If Tony had less self-control, well, he wouldn’t be called a hero. Gabe would be much more afraid. But it wasn’t Gabe's fear that Tony wanted or the revenge. Tony just wanted his kid to be safe. 

 

The police car holding the drunk asshole was left alone as per his request. The back window was only open enough to speak clearly through it. Tony strolled up to it and it took a moment for Gabe to even notice that he was there. Tony took a moment to enjoy the thought of the man looking like an obese rat that had drowned itself in beer. Tony knocked on the glass to catch Gabe’s attention.

 

“Rough night huh,” Tony casually leaned against the police car. 

 

“Wha-” Gabe seemed to realize who he was, “Yer the guy thas been stealin my kid!” His voice was slurred due to being drunk off his ass. Tony had no idea what May had seen in the guy, maybe he was more believable sober. 

 

“Your kid? Now that’s a good joke. You have quite the possessive problem, huh.” 

 

“It doesn matter… I didn want him… ‘es been passed down through every parent he has. I’d say he killed ‘em but I don’t think ‘es smart enough!” Gabe let out a cackle that could only be compared to a pirate that had all of his teeth knocked out for being an asshole. Tony was considering doing just that. Fortunately, he kept his cool. 

 

“He doesn’t deserve you… hell, he doesn’t deserve me. That kid, My kid, is one of the smartest people I have ever met and twice as compassionate as anyone I have ever encountered. He was too kind to you. I’m not so nice. I got enough dirt on you to be treated like a murderer. When you get out of the pit, I’m going to kick you back down and you’ll never be able to live without becoming a hopeless beggar. You won’t be able to afford to treat your heart disease or liver failure and you will wish that you were never born with the pain you will have to endure each day. No one will be charitable to such a scumbag.” Tony said in a tone that was much too cheerful for the words that came out of it. 

 

While Gabe was gaping like a fish, Tony got a call. The caller ID said that is was from May. 

 

“Hey May, are you having fun with my fiance?” Tony smiled and gave Gabe a cold stare while he spoke. 

 

“I have been informed that you got my boyfriend arrested… It’s a shame you got there first. I was planning on getting him accidentally run over by a car… at least after what Peter told me…” Tony honestly couldn’t tell if she was joking. “Thank you, Tony. It’s too bad that you have more self-control than I do. No one hurts my kid.” 

 

“Our kid.” Tony corrected in a joking tone even though he wasn’t completely joking. He was really attached to the kid. 

 

“Well, you’re not wrong. I didn’t even notice how bad this was…” 

 

“People like him are very good at manipulating people. And Peter is very good at trying to do the whole lone wolf, teenager thing. It’s not your fault.” Tony promised. 

 

“Are you still near Gabe? I want to send him a message.” May said in a poisonously sweet tone. 

 

“Of course.” Tony put his phone on speaker and the voice of May Parker sounding angrier than Tony have ever heard her echoed out from the device. Her roar reminded Tony of a lioness and if this was directed at him, he would honestly be afraid. 

 

“If I ever so much as see you again, I promise that these seven-inch metal stilettos that Pepper just bought me will go so far up your dick that you’ll be pissing silver for the rest of your miserable life.” Tony winced just at the imagery. 

 

“Well, that was… graphic… I would avoid her if I were you but where’s the fun in that.” Tony shrugged. 

 

“I am thoroughly traumatized.” a familiar young voice said from behind him. Peter, in normal clothes, even though he had been in the spider-suit only minutes earlier. 

 

“Hey kid, wanna go get some pizza?”

 

“I literally can’t say no to pizza.” Tony smiled as he led Peter away from the scene with an arm over his shoulder. “Did you really think I wouldn’t notice a drone with a camera attached to my backpack?”

 

Tony just laughed, and it was over much more simply than they thought it would be. Over pizza, they discussed the option of talking about their feelings because it was something that should probably be done eventually. They moved on to talk about the new star wars movie instead. And everything was fine or at least going to be that way.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank's for reading!


End file.
